Description: Through Care & Repair, small groups of young adults spend time with and do household tasks for parishioners who are not able to complete these tasks themselves. One person sits and visits with the host (care) while the other one to two people help with jobs around the house (repair).
Get Ready
- Prep Time: The prep time needed is only to coordinate logistics. You will probably want to begin planning a couple of months in advance to advertise and allow enough time for people to sign up.
- Volunteers Needed: You will need two to three volunteers for each Care & Repair site. One volunteer will sit and chat with the host, while one to two other volunteers will help with tasks around the house. Recruit other volunteers to help with set-up and check-in for the Care & Repair Day.
- Supplies: Supplies will vary based on what is needed to complete the household task. The home you are visiting may have the supplies needed, so it is important to check with the host and encourage him or her to provide the supplies, if possible. Supplies might include: cleaning solution, sponges, towels, rags, broom and dustpan, vacuum, lawnmower, rakes or other gardening tools, etc.
- Other possible supplies needed might include: name tags, sign in sheets, liability release forms (check in with your parish about whether this is needed), handouts with reflection questions, pieces of paper for drivers with info about the name of the parishioner(s), address, phone number, and possible household task(s).
- Reserve the Space: You will need a gathering space for check-in at the beginning of the day and small group discussion at the end of the event.
- Ideal Group Size: Two to three per host site, up to as many as 60.
- Who is this for? Young adults, married couples, and even parents with young kids could participate (kids could participate in the “Care” or light “Repair” work.)
- When is a good time for this? Saturday mornings or early afternoons. Allow two hours for the service and whatever time is needed before and after to meet, prepare, and debrief.
- Publicize the Program:
- Ask the pastor if you can make a quick announcement at the end of Mass to personally invite young adults to sign up. Stand outside at the end of Mass with a sign-up table.
- This is also a great opportunity for young adults who would not normally participate in church activities.
Prayer for Program Planner: Loving God, please bless all those who participate in Care & Repair: the young adults who do the caring and repairing, and the people who they will visit and spend time with. Amen.
Community Building: Grab a bite after Care & Repair to get to know each other better and reflect on the service experience. You might use this Virtual Retreat from Busted Halo® for reflecting on your service experience.
Make It Happen
Ahead of time:
- Set a date for your Care & Repair event (8 a.m.-12 p.m. or 1-5 p.m. on a Saturday).
- Work with parish leaders to invite parishioners (or people who parishioners know could use assistance) to sign up to have two to three Care & Repair volunteers visit their house for a two-hour period (e.g. 9-11 a.m. or 2-4 p.m.). Sign-ups can be managed in a number of different ways: parishioners can call or e-mail a parish staff member to sign up, fill out a card that they will return in the collection basket, or sign up through an online form. Be sure to collect name, address, phone number, and information about the task they would like to have completed. (See sample Sign-Up Sheet in the Help section.) If you are coordinating many volunteer placements on one day, it will be important to stress to the hosts that they should be equipped with whatever cleaning supplies, tools, etc., that are needed to complete the chore.
- Invite young adult volunteers to sign up by e-mailing a parish staff member, filling out a card they can return in the collection basket or signing up via an online form to commit to the volunteer service. As people sign up, ask them if they would be willing to drive other young adults to homes. Encourage the volunteers to wear clothes that can get dirty and closed toed shoes. If you think you will have more interested hosts than volunteers, begin by soliciting volunteers and then letting parishioners know that you only have X number of spots available.
- Call all host parishioners ahead of time to confirm, double check that the household chore is manageable, that they have the supplies needed to complete the chore, and to let them know that one person will be there to spend time with them.
Day of the Care & Repair service sample schedule:
- 8 a.m. — Arrival and check in
- 8:10-8:30 a.m. — Introductions and instructions
- 8:30-8:45 a.m. — Depart for homes
- 9-11 a.m. — Care & Repair at homes
- 11 a.m. — Depart from homes to return to parish
- 11:15/30am-12 p.m. — Small group discussion and closing reflection
Day-of preparation:
- Gather all young adult volunteers together at the parish or other meeting space one hour before they need to be at their Care & Repair sites (see sample schedule above).
- Divide up young adults into teams of two to three.
- Prepare a sign-in table with: Name tags, sign-in sheets, permission forms (check in with your parish about whether this is needed). Give young adults who volunteered to drive pieces of paper for their site that list the name of the parishioner(s), address, phone number, and possible household task(s).
Introductions and instructions:
- When all participants have arrived, gather the group together and welcome everyone to the Care & Repair day.
- Divide young adults into their groups of two to three. Invite them to get to know each other and say that, when they come back to the larger group, they will be tasked with introducing each other to the group. (E.g., This is Josh, he is from Indiana and is an architect.)
- After you bring people back to the larger group and they have had the chance to introduce each other, tell people that they will have the opportunity to either Care or Repair today. Say that those who Care will sit and spend time chatting with the parishioner and the Repair person(s) will do small jobs around the house, such as raking leaves, cleaning windows, mowing the lawn, etc. Tell participants that they should decide among themselves who will Care and who will Repair before arriving at their site.
- Invite participants to pay attention to their thoughts and feelings as they go through the experience and explain that they will have the chance to reflect together briefly when they return to the parish. Invite everyone to be back by a specific time.
- Send everyone with a brief prayer. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Loving God, we ask you to guide us today as we serve you through Care & Repair. We pray in thanksgiving for the hospitality of all those who we will visit and for the volunteers gathered here who have given up their time to serve today. Help us to be attentive to your presence in others. In your name we pray, Amen.”
- All depart for Care & Repair homes for two hours and return to the parish at the designated time.
Small group discussion and closing reflection:
- Greet participants as they return.
- Divide people into small groups with others who were not in their same Care & Repair group.
- Give small groups printed reflection questions and 10-15 minutes to discuss these questions in small groups.
- Small group reflection questions:
- Where did you go and who did you meet today?
- What was your experience of caring/repairing?
- Do you think you would have been more or less comfortable if you were in the other role (e.g. care instead of repair)? Why?
- What did you find challenging?
- How did you experience care yourself?
- Bring the larger group back together.
- Ask for volunteers to share what was discussed in their small group discussions.
- For your closing prayer, read the Gospel story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). Tell participants you will read it a few times with different prompts. Before you read it the first time, ask participants to pay attention to what word or phrase stands out to them and to think about this silently after you read the Gospel. Then, read the passage and pause.
- Say you will read the passage a second time and ask them to ponder silently what questions the passage raises for them. Then, read the passage and pause.
- Say you will read the passage a final time and ask them to quietly consider whether they felt more like Martha or Mary today and why. Ask: Were you uncomfortable while you sat and chatted with someone? Did you feel like you didn’t get enough done? Were you peaceful while you completed your Repair task? Were you worried about what you had going in the rest of your life or were you present to Christ? Then, read the passage again and pause.
- After a moment of silence, close in prayer: “Christ, thank you for allowing us to be present to you today through our caring and repairing. We ask that you help us focus on you in the caring and repairing in our daily lives, instead of being worried about how effective we are, what somebody else is doing, or getting distracted by other anxieties. Help us to remember there is need of only one thing: to be attentive to your presence in our midst. We pray for all those who revealed you to us today and for the many others in our parish and community who are alone. We ask all these things in your name, Amen.”
- Note: If you choose to run this event from 8 a.m.-12 p.m., consider inviting participants to grab lunch together after. If you host Care & Repair in the afternoon, arrange the timing of the schedule so that participants could finish the volunteer opportunity and stay for the Saturday Vigil Mass at the parish.
